From the time a child enters school, they embark on a journey in a world among their peers, governed by scholars as opposed to parents. One's first full day at school is a send off into a new universe they would soon grow accustomed to and exist in for the next twelve years of their lives. While high school proves to be a different arena entirely, elementary and middle schools mark the times when one evolves from child to teenager and cultivates an identity inside and outside the classroom. All of my early experiences in both elementary and middle school were influenced by social and academic events and have culminated to embody the woman I am today.
The first school I was enrolled at was Meadowbrook Farms Elementary School in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. From kindergarten until the third grade, I attended school with neighborhood kids whom I lived near and grew to know extremely well. It was these same kids who were my co-stars in the first grade play "The Garden" and it was they who raced out of the building next to me for the unveiling of the newly donated playground. It was they who witnessed me cracking open my head on a metal swing on the last day of the second grade and it was they whom I showed the staples to when I returned later that afternoon. I received the honor of eating extra doses of candy and sitting on the teachers lap in the coveted big rocking chair. She, like many of my other teachers at Meadowbrook, felt more like a mother to us than a woman of authority. They were not employed to be our bosses, but to nurture and foster our young minds and to care about us. They showed no bias or preference towards any one student, unless of course that day you had your skull slightly cracked. All of my peers seemed intellectually equal, with nobody visually emerging as smart or slow. Possibly, this is a result of most of us coming from similar backgrounds and most families in the area being supportive and active in their children's educations. However, from a young age it seems as though my intelligence did begin to emerge in the top ranks. Though it is beyond my memory, my mom often tells of the time I was specially chosen to write a speech for the visit of United States Congressman James Langevin. It was at Meadowbrook that I began schooling and developed into a student along side my peers under the direction of nurturing teachers.
However, the comfort of the community at Meadowbrook Farms Elementary was short lived, as my parents decided to move to Cranston, Rhode Island. There, I would spend a few months at Stone Hill Elementary School before transferring with my class to the newly built Orchard Farms Elementary School. During this time period, I lived in four different houses and left behind every friend I had ever made thus far to start over in this new town. On the first day of my new school, I talked to nobody and spent my recess in the nurse's office after cutting my knee pacing around the playground's perimeter. Luckily, my time alone ceased, when, within the next few days, a group of well-known girls asked if I wanted to be friends with them and sit by them at lunch. From that point on, I was never friendless again. I had become part of the popular group of fourth grade girls (as popular as one can be at that age). We knew and made up the hippest hand games and were friends with all five boys in our class. Together, we transitioned into Orchard Farms, confident as ever. Entering the fifth grade proved to be an enjoyable yet exhausting experience. My grade was the first graduating class of the school, granting us the privilege to keep our handprints on the wall in paint for years and years to come. I won the fifth grade spelling bee and was growing as a dancer outside of school. However, this year marked a time of transition between being a child in school and becoming a full time student. The three teachers, trying to prepare us for middle school, enacted a class switching system and loaded on the course work. As a ten year old, I was enduring hours upon hours of homework and projects, barely having time to enjoy just being a kid. I nearly missed trick-or-treatng on Halloween night because of the large project due the next day. School was more like a full-time job than a learning experience. (Since then, their policies have changed, requiring most projects to be done in school.) Despite how painstaking this experience was, it truly did prepare me for the next stage of schooling to come.
For junior high, I attended Western Hills Middle School, staying within Cranston's borders. It was here when pivotal changes occurred both academically and socially. At this point, I truly emerged as a high performing student, being placed into the higher lever classes and always recieving A's (and only one B in all three years). Each year, I received numerous awards from specific departments directed towards the students that were truly excelling in each particular subject. However, the subject I developed a passion for in middle school was science. The material was the most interesting I had ever learned and every science teacher that I had the honor of studying under was my favorite. There never came a day where I was unexcited about science class. It is partially their influences that have driven me to double major in education and biology and follow in their footsteps. While academic successes are always proud moments, I am also grateful that middle school brought together some of my closest friends, three of which I have remained extremely close to. I participated in the talents shows and took the same field trip each year to see the Trinity Repertory's performance of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". But, the pinnacle of middle school for me and many of my friends, was the Boston trip we took in the eighth grade with my team, made up of about 100 students and 4 teachers. It was our last hoorah before our progression to high school and we absorbed every last minute. Between racing up the Bunker Hill Monument, driving a duck boat, and walking around Faniuel Hall as if we owned it, that trip would truly be one nobody would be able to forget and it is certainly what I remember most vividly about my middle schools years.
It is evident that my early years of education were filled with times of both fun and difficulty, and as a result, there are many lessons I have taken away from these experiences. For example, I know that in a great teacher, you both have to challenge your students, like my fifth grade ones did, but also be an adult they can talk to and trust, like my second grade teacher. Furthermore, I am determined to be like my science teachers were to me when I become one myself. I want to make an impact on students and inspire them to love science and learning about the world in which we exist. Also, I learned from my tough year in the fifth grade that nothing is unachievable with unwavering determination. That was a lesson I learned as a ten-year-old that still governs my outlook on school work today. I learned that starting completely over in a new environment and making friends is never as difficult as it may seem. Given how quickly the time passed retrospectively, I am trying to seize each day and enjoy every moment. On a lighter note, I learned that when a dead business partner of yours appears in ghost form bearing chains, you know you are in deep trouble, adults tell you not to walk in front of a moving metal swing for a reason, and that running up a monument with 294 stairs, is never a good idea, despite how fun the tour guide makes it seem. No matter how trivial or profound the lesson may be, it is, without a doubt, that what I learned from my years of early schooling, both socially and academically, has shaped me as both a scholar and as a person.
Early Education Essay
From the time a child enters school, they embark on a journey in a world among their peers, governed by scholars as opposed to parents. One's first full day at school is a send off into a new universe they would soon grow accustomed to and exist in for the next twelve years of their lives. While high school proves to be a different arena entirely, elementary and middle schools mark the times when one evolves from child to teenager and cultivates an identity inside and outside the classroom. All of my early experiences in both elementary and middle school were influenced by social and academic events and have culminated to embody the woman I am today.
The first school I was enrolled at was Meadowbrook Farms Elementary School in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. From kindergarten until the third grade, I attended school with neighborhood kids whom I lived near and grew to know extremely well. It was these same kids who were my co-stars in the first grade play "The Garden" and it was they who raced out of the building next to me for the unveiling of the newly donated playground. It was they who witnessed me cracking open my head on a metal swing on the last day of the second grade and it was they whom I showed the staples to when I returned later that afternoon. I received the honor of eating extra doses of candy and sitting on the teachers lap in the coveted big rocking chair. She, like many of my other teachers at Meadowbrook, felt more like a mother to us than a woman of authority. They were not employed to be our bosses, but to nurture and foster our young minds and to care about us. They showed no bias or preference towards any one student, unless of course that day you had your skull slightly cracked. All of my peers seemed intellectually equal, with nobody visually emerging as smart or slow. Possibly, this is a result of most of us coming from similar backgrounds and most families in the area being supportive and active in their children's educations. However, from a young age it seems as though my intelligence did begin to emerge in the top ranks. Though it is beyond my memory, my mom often tells of the time I was specially chosen to write a speech for the visit of United States Congressman James Langevin. It was at Meadowbrook that I began schooling and developed into a student along side my peers under the direction of nurturing teachers.
However, the comfort of the community at Meadowbrook Farms Elementary was short lived, as my parents decided to move to Cranston, Rhode Island. There, I would spend a few months at Stone Hill Elementary School before transferring with my class to the newly built Orchard Farms Elementary School. During this time period, I lived in four different houses and left behind every friend I had ever made thus far to start over in this new town. On the first day of my new school, I talked to nobody and spent my recess in the nurse's office after cutting my knee pacing around the playground's perimeter. Luckily, my time alone ceased, when, within the next few days, a group of well-known girls asked if I wanted to be friends with them and sit by them at lunch. From that point on, I was never friendless again. I had become part of the popular group of fourth grade girls (as popular as one can be at that age). We knew and made up the hippest hand games and were friends with all five boys in our class. Together, we transitioned into Orchard Farms, confident as ever. Entering the fifth grade proved to be an enjoyable yet exhausting experience. My grade was the first graduating class of the school, granting us the privilege to keep our handprints on the wall in paint for years and years to come. I won the fifth grade spelling bee and was growing as a dancer outside of school. However, this year marked a time of transition between being a child in school and becoming a full time student. The three teachers, trying to prepare us for middle school, enacted a class switching system and loaded on the course work. As a ten year old, I was enduring hours upon hours of homework and projects, barely having time to enjoy just being a kid. I nearly missed trick-or-treatng on Halloween night because of the large project due the next day. School was more like a full-time job than a learning experience. (Since then, their policies have changed, requiring most projects to be done in school.) Despite how painstaking this experience was, it truly did prepare me for the next stage of schooling to come.
For junior high, I attended Western Hills Middle School, staying within Cranston's borders. It was here when pivotal changes occurred both academically and socially. At this point, I truly emerged as a high performing student, being placed into the higher lever classes and always recieving A's (and only one B in all three years). Each year, I received numerous awards from specific departments directed towards the students that were truly excelling in each particular subject. However, the subject I developed a passion for in middle school was science. The material was the most interesting I had ever learned and every science teacher that I had the honor of studying under was my favorite. There never came a day where I was unexcited about science class. It is partially their influences that have driven me to double major in education and biology and follow in their footsteps. While academic successes are always proud moments, I am also grateful that middle school brought together some of my closest friends, three of which I have remained extremely close to. I participated in the talents shows and took the same field trip each year to see the Trinity Repertory's performance of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". But, the pinnacle of middle school for me and many of my friends, was the Boston trip we took in the eighth grade with my team, made up of about 100 students and 4 teachers. It was our last hoorah before our progression to high school and we absorbed every last minute. Between racing up the Bunker Hill Monument, driving a duck boat, and walking around Faniuel Hall as if we owned it, that trip would truly be one nobody would be able to forget and it is certainly what I remember most vividly about my middle schools years.
It is evident that my early years of education were filled with times of both fun and difficulty, and as a result, there are many lessons I have taken away from these experiences. For example, I know that in a great teacher, you both have to challenge your students, like my fifth grade ones did, but also be an adult they can talk to and trust, like my second grade teacher. Furthermore, I am determined to be like my science teachers were to me when I become one myself. I want to make an impact on students and inspire them to love science and learning about the world in which we exist. Also, I learned from my tough year in the fifth grade that nothing is unachievable with unwavering determination. That was a lesson I learned as a ten-year-old that still governs my outlook on school work today. I learned that starting completely over in a new environment and making friends is never as difficult as it may seem. Given how quickly the time passed retrospectively, I am trying to seize each day and enjoy every moment. On a lighter note, I learned that when a dead business partner of yours appears in ghost form bearing chains, you know you are in deep trouble, adults tell you not to walk in front of a moving metal swing for a reason, and that running up a monument with 294 stairs, is never a good idea, despite how fun the tour guide makes it seem. No matter how trivial or profound the lesson may be, it is, without a doubt, that what I learned from my years of early schooling, both socially and academically, has shaped me as both a scholar and as a person.